Two California counties sued five of the world's largest narcotics manufacturers on Wednesday, accusing the companies of causing the nation's prescription drug epidemic by waging a "campaign of deception" aimed at boosting sales of potent painkillers such as OxyContin.
Officials from Orange and Santa Clara counties — both hit hard by overdose deaths, emergency room visits and escalating medical costs associated with prescription narcotics — contend the drug makers violated California laws against false advertising, unfair business practices and creating a public nuisance.
In sweeping language reminiscent of the legal attack against the tobacco industry, the lawsuit alleges the drug companies have reaped blockbuster profits by manipulating doctors into believing the benefits of narcotic painkillers outweighed the risks, despite "a wealth of scientific evidence to the contrary." The effort "opened the floodgates" for such drugs and "the result has been catastrophic," the lawsuit contends.
The complaint accuses the companies of encouraging patients, including well-insured veterans and the elderly, to ask their doctors for the painkillers to treat common conditions such as headaches, arthritis and back pain.
The widespread prescribing of narcotics has created "a population of addicts" and triggered a resurgence in the use of heroin, which produces a similar high to opiate-based painkillers, but is cheaper, the suit says.
I wonder about this a lot. I work as a chiropractor and a pretty large patient base is slip and fall and car accident cases. A lot of these people are from the lower socioeconomic classes. A lot of these people are also the ones begging for pain meds.
A lot of these people are becoming more and more accustomed to instant gratification and just want their pain to go away immediately. They don't want it managed, they want it gone. I think the pain med distribution is a symptom of a larger problem.
People want things handed to them for the most part. Ask people to work hard for something and they grumble and mumble. The one thing that people need most when they come to see me (exercise) is the hardest to get them to do. I don't want to beat the same old drum all the time, but pills are a lot easier than breaking a sweat. I tell people all the time about McGill's Big 3. Of the few people who actually do it, the overwhelming majority are able to decrease their back pain and decrease their overall time in therapy in a much shorter amount of time.
Absolutely, I think it was Furman who pointed out that more Oxycontin was prescribed and sold in his county in Florida than the rest of the world combined. Yeah, there were some shady loopholes, but you can bet your ass that the drug companies rode that wave until it was finished.
Medical expenses paid by states tend to go up on an annual basis-- getting big pharma to pay for a portion of these would seem to be a great incentive to win these suits.
"Liberalism is arbitrarily selective in its choice of whose dignity to champion." Adrian Vermeule
I'm not a doctor, so I don't know the answer to this: What sort of responsibility do individual doctors have to perform independent research before they prescribe?
Looking at it from the perspective of a lawyer: I deal on a daily basis with large public utilities, who have large, well-funded legal departments, who constantly advance their preferred legal outcomes at my agency. Lots of times those preferred outcomes sound plausible, even convincing. It's my job, as a lawyer and as a representative of that agency, to do my independent research and not to accept those arguments at face value. Maybe the utilities are right, maybe they're wrong, but I'm not going to take their word for it before I make my recommendations to my client.
So let's say you have a doctor, and the pharmaceutical company is telling that doctor "hey, this fentanyl is great, the next time someone comes in with a headache try some out!" Does the doctor have a duty to do any research into that? And, more practically, do doctors working in primary care have the time and resources to perform that research even if they want to?
Shafpocalypse Now wrote:Absolutely, I think it was Furman who pointed out that more Oxycontin was prescribed and sold in his county in Florida than the rest of the world combined. Yeah, there were some shady loopholes, but you can bet your ass that the drug companies rode that wave until it was finished.
Our "Citilink" and "New Times" magazines used to be full of escort ads. Now they have pain clinic ads. The DEA has special teams just to deal with Oxy and pain clinics. This was from our friend Steve Bowser who is now retired from Undercover and DEA.
"There is only one God, and he doesn't dress like that". - - Captain America
